


Pieces of You

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Drabble Sequence, F/M, MayThe4th Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-15 21:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18677983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Two people, finding each other.





	Pieces of You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lastwingedthing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/gifts).



It started with help.

When Hera told her friends her news, her family offered hugs and hopes. Rex offered a meeting with friends of his.

"You told me clones can't father children."

"'Father' or not, Cut's their dad."

Suu's kids were almost Hera's age, and brilliant and healthy. Meeting their family soothed many of her worries about things to come.

Later, though, when she thought about their brief visit to Saleucami, she recalled most the sight of her friend relaxing inside the life he could have lived, chatting with a brother who'd seen fewer harsh climates and far more smiles.

* * *

They were always on the run, starting the day after Yavin 4 was discovered, the day after the first Death Star fell. Her team flowed and changed. Her friends moved on with their own lives. Her trainees moved on, or died, as did her colleagues.

Rex didn't leave. Every time they split the fleet, every time the chain of command snapped or was shifted, she found his name listed among the crew assigned to her command. Part of her waited for him to accept a promotion to another ship, but he never did. Rex stayed, when even her family left.

* * *

Hoth was frigid, and the ships weren't much warmer. He joined her for meals, eating the same cold rations with her that he might in the mess. "Company's better," Rex always said with a twinkle.

Hera hadn't been warm in months. She'd kept her heart encased in ice far longer.

"You could stay," she told him, halting and nervous. The last time she'd fallen in love, they hadn't dated, instead growing together like two vines tangling into one another. She wasn't sure how this worked.

"I could." He didn't, but he her left with a lingering kiss and a promise.

* * *

Rex had fled Hoth aboard another ship. Hera spent long weeks before the rendezvous not knowing if he'd survived the evacuation. When his frigate limped in at last, Hera waited until he'd finished reporting in at Home One before she invited him back to the Ghost for caf.

"I thought you were gone," she said as soon as the hatch closed.

He embraced her. "I always find my way home."

They'd talked enough over the years. Words weren't necessary past "there," and "wait," and "more." Years had passed since her last time, and decades since his, but neither had forgotten.

* * *

She cried, after. She didn't mean to let old regrets to wash away her good feeling. "I'm sorry. It's not you."

"We all carry ghosts with us," Rex said, warm and steady next to her. "I wake up some nights sure that General Skywalker is standing there."

Another worry. "You think they're here with us?"

"I'd rather believe they're at peace. They earned a rest. You know they'd be sad if we spent the rest of our lives not living."

Hera wasn't sure when she was ready to start living, but after their second try, she didn't cry at all.

* * *

Rex requested a transfer, and wound up with a promotion. Hera saw him less often, but enjoyed no longer being in his direct chain of command. Zeb teased her about smiling more these days.

The war ended, first in another fallen Death Star thanks to Rex's strike team, and a year later in a battle over some forgotten desert. At long last, they were free.

"Where do you want to go first?" Hera asked Jacen.

"Dad promised to teach me to fish for joopas."

"It was his idea."

Hera said, "I am not eating joopa." But she set the coordinates.


End file.
